The Archaeology of Farming in Burkina Faso, West Africa

Despite occupying a similar savanna environmental zone, growing similar crops, and generally eating the same dishes, the modern peoples of Burkina Faso exhibit a remarkable diversity of farming practices. In this paper I will expose the great time depth of these  societal choices within the general constraints imposed by environment by comparing paleoethnobotanical and spatial data from archaeological investigation of two different regions of Burkina Faso, one farmed prehistorically using a more spatially intensive and one a more extensive agricultural strategy. In addition I will discuss some of the implications of these choices for general debates on the sustainability of traditional farming practices, and suggest the potential benefits of the long-term perspective afforded by archaeology.